Virtual Support through Social Networking

If you ‘get a Facebook’ for yourself to connect to other people then probably, you have made a good choice (depending, of course, on whether your contacts are on Facebook). Facebook is a social networking site that has an upward of 600 million users making it more populous than Singapore or Finland and ‘get a Facebook’ is a term used by youngsters that actually means creating a user account on Facebook.

Apart from general uses like catching up with acquaintances or a more unusual one like stalking, Facebook can also be used to fund your presidential campaign. Ask President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. In February 2008, John McCain raised $11 million for his presidential while that month Barack Obama attended no campaign fundraiser. Instead, Obama made use of online social networks to raise $55 million in those 29 days. Obama raised $639 million in entirety of which 87% was through social networking.

The point is if you have a cause, then you’ll get support from like-minded people by putting to use your social networking skills, online. You could list your cause on Causes, an application on Facebook enabling other users to view and back your cause. Camfed is an international NGO aimed towards fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa by educating girls. When Camfed started their cause, they had a small email list and a relatively unknown brand name. To jumpstart membership, two anonymous donors stepped up and offered to donate $1 for each person who joined their cause. They then offered to bring whoever recruited the most people to their cause on their next trip to Africa. Within a couple of months, their cause membership shot up to over 50,000 people. Now there are over 700,000 people in the cause and they have shifted their focus to emphasize fundraising. Camfed’s Ryan Quiel said, “It took Camfed 13 years to grow our list to 10,000 known supporters. With this campaign, our cause just gained 10,000 new known supporters in 2 days!”

Since its founding in 2007, Causes has enabled 25,000 non-profit organisations to raise $30 million with over 500,000 user-created causes.

With social networking one might be surprised through the medium through which they raise support. For instance, a fundraiser for a hospital for children received 163,078 donations from people playing Farmville, a popular game on Facebook where players farm virtually!

Mass participation and awareness weighs more than money and that is exactly what Anna Hazare needed. Today, Anna Hazare is the face of India's fight against corruption persuading the government to enact the Jan Lokpal Bill, a strong anti-corruption law. Anna began a fast unto death from 5 April 2011 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to press for the demand to draft a new bill with stronger penal actions and more independence to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas (Ombudsmen in the states). Facebook recorded 40,000 supporters for Anna Hazare on the first day itself. Celebrities poured in their support online. Anna’s movement resonated with the youth and the educated class making it a different and impactful movement altogether. Currently he is at loggerheads with the government regarding the drafting of the Lokpal Bill. Hope this turns into another success story ringing in a whole new dimension to what can aptly be termed as Virtual Support.